Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist ( PDFDrive )

Tablet?" the boy asked.

"Perhaps, if you were in a laboratory of
alchemy, this would be the right time
to study the best way to understand the
Emerald Tablet. But you are in the
desert. So immerse yourself in it. The
desert will give you an understanding
of the world; in fact, anything on the
face of the earth will do that. You don't
even have to understand the desert: all
you have to do is contemplate a simple
grain of sand, and you will see in it all
the marvels of creation."

"How do I immerse myself in the
desert?"

"Listen to your heart. It knows all

things, because it came from the Soul
of the World, and it will one day return
there."

*

They crossed the desert for another two
days in silence. The alchemist had
become much more cautious, because
they were approaching the area where
the most violent battles were being
waged. As they moved along, the boy
tried to listen to his heart.

It was not easy to do; in earlier times,
his heart had always been ready to tell
its story, but lately that wasn't true.
There had been times when his heart
spent hours telling of its sadness, and

at other times it became so emotional
over the desert sunrise that the boy had
to hide his tears. His heart beat fastest
when it spoke to the boy of treasure,
and more slowly when the boy stared
entranced at the endless horizons of the
desert. But his heart was never quiet,
even when the boy and the alchemist
had fallen into silence.

"Why do we have to listen to our
hearts?" the boy asked, when they had
made camp that day.

"Because, wherever your heart is, that
is where you'll find your treasure."

"But my heart is agitated," the boy
said. "It has its dreams, it gets

emotional, and it's become passionate
over a woman of the desert. It asks
things of me, and it keeps me from
sleeping many nights, when I'm
thinking about her."

"Well, that's good. Your heart is alive.
Keep listening to what it has to say."

During the next three days, the two
travelers passed by a number of armed
tribesmen, and saw others on the
horizon. The boy's heart began to speak
of fear. It told him stories it had heard
from the Soul of the World, stories of
men who sought to find their treasure
and never succeeded. Sometimes it
frightened the boy with the idea that he

might not find his treasure, or that he
might die there in the desert. At other
times, it told the boy that it was
satisfied: it had found love and riches.

"My heart is a traitor," the boy said to
the alchemist, when they had paused to
rest the horses. "It doesn't want me to
go on."

"That makes sense," the alchemist
answered. "Naturally it's afraid that, in
pursuing your dream, you might lose
everything you've won."

"Well, then, why should I listen to my
heart?"

"Because you will never again be able

to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not
to have heard what it tells you, it will
always be there inside you, repeating to
you what you're thinking about life and
about the world."

"You mean I should listen, even if it's
treasonous?"

"Treason is a blow that comes
unexpectedly. If you know your heart
well, it will never be able to do that to
you. Because you'll know its dreams
and wishes, and will know how to deal
with them.

"You will never be able to escape from
your heart. So it's better to listen to
what it has to say. That way, you'll

never have to fear an unanticipated
blow."

The boy continued to listen to his heart
as they crossed the desert. He came to
understand its dodges and tricks, and to
accept it as it was. He lost his fear, and
forgot about his need to go back to the
oasis, because, one afternoon, his heart
told him that it was happy.

"Even though I complain sometimes,"
it said, "it's because I'm the heart of a
person, and people's hearts are that
way. People are afraid to pursue their
most important dreams, because they
feel that they don't deserve them, or
that they'll be unable to achieve them.

We, their hearts, become fearful just
thinking of loved ones who go away
forever, or of moments that could have
been good but weren't, or of treasures
that might have been found but were
forever hidden in the sands. Because,
when these things happen, we suffer
terribly."

"My heart is afraid that it will have to
suffer," the boy told the alchemist one
night as they looked up at the moonless
sky.

"Tell your heart that the fear of
suffering is worse than the suffering
itself. And that no heart has ever
suffered when it goes in search of its

dreams, because every second of the
search is a second's encounter with God
and with eternity."

"Every second of the search is an
encounter with God," the boy told his
heart. "When I have been truly
searching for my treasure, every day
has been luminous, because I've known
that every hour was a part of the dream
that I would find it. When I have been
truly searching for my treasure, I've
discovered things along the way that I
never would have seen had I not had
the courage to try things that seemed
impossible for a shepherd to achieve."

So his heart was quiet for an entire

afternoon. That night, the boy slept
deeply, and, when he awoke, his heart
began to tell him things that came from
the Soul of the World. It said that all
people who are happy have God within
them. And that happiness could be
found in a grain of sand from the
desert, as the alchemist had said.
Because a grain of sand is a moment of
creation, and the universe has taken
millions of years to create it.
"Everyone on earth has a treasure that
awaits him," his heart said. "We,
people's hearts, seldom say much about
those treasures, because people no
longer want to go in search of them.
We speak of them only to children.
Later, we simply let life proceed, in its

own direction, toward its own fate. But,
unfortunately, very few follow the path
laid out for them—the path to their
destinies, and to happiness. Most
people see the world as a threatening
place, and, because they do, the world
turns out, indeed, to be a threatening
place.

"So, we, their hearts, speak more and
more softly. We never stop speaking
out, but we begin to hope that our
words won't be heard: we don't want
people to suffer because they don't
follow their hearts."

"Why don't people's hearts tell them to
continue to follow their dreams?" the

boy asked the alchemist.

"Because that's what makes a heart
suffer most, and hearts don't like to
suffer."

From then on, the boy understood his
heart. He asked it, please, never to stop
speaking to him. He asked that, when
he wandered far from his dreams, his
heart press him and sound the alarm.
The boy swore that, every time he
heard the alarm, he would heed its
message.

That night, he told all of this to the
alchemist. And the alchemist
understood that the boy's heart had
returned to the Soul of the World.

"So what should I do now?" the boy
asked.

"Continue in the direction of the
Pyramids," said the alchemist. "And
continue to pay heed to the omens.
Your heart is still capable of showing
you where the treasure is."

"Is that the one thing I still needed to
know?"

"No," the alchemist answered. "What
you still need to know is this: before a
dream is realized, the Soul of the
World tests everything that was learned
along the way. It does this not because
it is evil, but so that we can, in addition
to realizing our dreams, master the

lessons we've learned as we've moved
toward that dream. That's the point at
which most people give up. It's the
point at which, as we say in the
language of the desert, one

'dies of thirst just when the palm trees
have appeared on the horizon.'

"Every search begins with beginner's
luck. And every search ends with the
victor's being severely tested."

The boy remembered an old proverb
from his country. It said that the
darkest hour of the night came just
before the dawn.

*

On the following day, the first clear
sign of danger appeared. Three armed
tribesmen approached, and asked what
the boy and the alchemist were doing
there.

"I'm hunting with my falcon," the
alchemist answered.

"We're going to have to search you to
see whether you're armed," one of the
tribesmen said.

The alchemist dismounted slowly, and
the boy did the same.

"Why are you carrying money?" asked
the tribesman, when he had searched
the boy's bag.

"I need it to get to the Pyramids," he
said.

The tribesman who was searching the
alchemist's belongings found a small
crystal flask filled with a liquid, and a
yellow glass egg that was slightly
larger than a chicken's egg.

"What are these things?" he asked.

"That's the Philosopher's Stone and the
Elixir of Life. It's the Master Work of
the alchemists. Whoever swallows that
elixir will never be sick again, and a
fragment from that stone turns any
metal into gold."

The Arabs laughed at him, and the

alchemist laughed along. They thought
his answer was amusing, and they
allowed the boy and the alchemist to
proceed with all of their belongings.

"Are you crazy?" the boy asked the
alchemist, when they had moved on.
"What did you do that for?"

"To show you one of life's simple
lessons," the alchemist answered.
"When you possess great treasures
within you, and try to tell others of
them, seldom are you believed."

They continued across the desert. With
every day that passed, the boy's heart
became more and more silent. It no
longer wanted to know about things of

the past or future; it was content
simply to contemplate the desert, and
to drink with the boy from the Soul of
the World. The boy and his heart had
become friends, and neither was
capable now of betraying the other.

When his heart spoke to him, it was to
provide a stimulus to the boy, and to
give him strength, because the days of
silence there in the desert were
wearisome. His heart told the boy what
his strongest qualities were: his
courage in having given up his sheep
and in trying to live out his destiny,
and his enthusiasm during the time he
had worked at the crystal shop.

And his heart told him something else
that the boy had never noticed: it told
the boy of dangers that had threatened
him, but that he had never perceived.
His heart said that one time it had
hidden the rifle the boy had taken from
his father, because of the possibility
that the boy might wound himself. And
it reminded the boy of the day when he
had been ill and vomiting out in the
fields, after which he had fallen into a
deep sleep. There had been two thieves
farther ahead who were planning to
steal the boy's sheep and murder him.
But, since the boy hadn't passed by,
they had decided to move on, thinking
that he had changed his route.

"Does a man's heart always help him?"
the boy asked the alchemist.

"Mostly just the hearts of those who
are trying to realize their destinies. But
they do help children, drunkards, and
the elderly, too."

"Does that mean that I'll never run into
danger?"

"It means only that the heart does what
it can," the alchemist said.

One afternoon, they passed by the
encampment of one of the tribes. At
each corner of the camp were Arabs
garbed in beautiful white robes, with
arms at the ready. The men were

smoking their hookahs and trading
stories from the battlefield. No one
paid any attention to the two travelers.

"There's no danger," the boy said, when
they had moved on past the
encampment.

The alchemist sounded angry: "Trust in
your heart, but never forget that you're
in the desert. When men are at war
with one another, the Soul of the World
can hear the screams of battle. No one
fails to suffer the consequences of
everything under the sun."

All things are one, the boy thought.
And then, as if the desert wanted to
demonstrate that the alchemist was

right, two horsemen appeared from
behind the travelers.

"You can't go any farther," one of them
said. "You're in the area where the
tribes are at war."

"I'm not going very far," the alchemist
answered, looking straight into the eyes
of the horsemen. They were silent for a
moment, and then agreed that the boy
and the alchemist could move along.

The boy watched the exchange with
fascination. "You dominated those
horsemen with the way you looked at
them," he said.

"Your eyes show the strength of your

soul," answered the alchemist.

That's true, the boy thought. He had
noticed that, in the midst of the
multitude of armed men back at the
encampment, there had been one who
stared fixedly at the two. He had been
so far away that his face wasn't even
visible. But the boy was certain that he
had been looking at them.

Finally, when they had crossed the
mountain range that extended along the
entire horizon, the alchemist said that
they were only two days from the
Pyramids.

"If we're going to go our separate ways
soon," the boy said, "then teach me

about alchemy."

"You already know about alchemy. It is
about penetrating to the Soul of the
World, and discovering the treasure
that has been reserved for you."

"No, that's not what I mean. I'm talking
about transforming lead into gold."

The alchemist fell as silent as the
desert, and answered the boy only after
they had stopped to eat.

"Everything in the universe evolved,"
he said. "And, for wise men, gold is the
metal that evolved the furthest. Don't
ask me why; I don't know why. I just
know that the Tradition is always right.

"Men have never understood the words
of the wise. So gold, instead of being
seen as a symbol of evolution, became
the basis for conflict."

"There are many languages spoken by
things," the boy said. "There was a time
when, for me, a camel's whinnying was
nothing more than whinnying. Then it
became a signal of danger. And,
finally, it became just a whinny again."

But then he stopped. The alchemist
probably already knew all that.

"I have known true alchemists," the
alchemist continued. "They locked
themselves in their laboratories, and
tried to evolve, as gold had. And they

found the Philosopher's Stone, because
they understood that when something
evolves, everything around that thing
evolves as well.

"Others stumbled upon the stone by
accident. They already had the gift, and
their souls were readier for such things
than the souls of others. But they don't
count. They're quite rare.

"And then there were the others, who
were interested only in gold. They
never found the secret. They forgot that
lead, copper, and iron have their own
destinies to fulfill. And anyone who
interferes with the destiny of another
thing never will discover his own."

The alchemist's words echoed out like
a curse. He reached over and picked up
a shell from the ground.

"This desert was once a sea," he said.

"I noticed that," the boy answered.

The alchemist told the boy to place the
shell over his ear. He had done that
many times when he was a child, and
had heard the sound of the sea.

"The sea has lived on in this shell,
because that's its destiny. And it will
never cease doing so until the desert is
once again covered by water."

They mounted their horses, and rode

out in the direction of the Pyramids of
Egypt.

*

The sun was setting when the boy's
heart sounded a danger signal. They
were surrounded by gigantic dunes, and
the boy looked at the alchemist to see
whether he had sensed anything. But he
appeared to be unaware of any danger.
Five minutes later, the boy saw two
horsemen waiting ahead of them.
Before he could say anything to the
alchemist, the two horsemen had
become ten, and then a hundred. And
then they were everywhere in the
dunes.

They were tribesmen dressed in blue,
with black rings surrounding their
turbans. Their faces were hidden
behind blue veils, with only their eyes
showing.

Even from a distance, their eyes
conveyed the strength of their souls.
And their eyes spoke of death.

*

The two were taken to a nearby
military camp. A soldier shoved the
boy and the alchemist into a tent where
the chief was holding a meeting with
his staff.

"These are the spies," said one of the

men.

"We're just travelers," the alchemist
answered.

"You were seen at the enemy camp
three days ago. And you were talking
with one of the troops there."

"I'm just a man who wanders the desert
and knows the stars," said the
alchemist. "I have no information
about troops or about the movement of
the tribes. I was simply acting as a
guide for my friend here."

"Who is your friend?" the chief asked.

"An alchemist," said the alchemist. "He

understands the forces of nature. And
he wants to show you his extraordinary
powers."

The boy listened quietly. And fearfully.

"What is a foreigner doing here?"
asked another of the men.

"He has brought money to give to your
tribe," said the alchemist, before the
boy could say a word. And seizing the
boy's bag, the alchemist gave the gold
coins to the chief.

The Arab accepted them without a
word. There was enough there to buy a
lot of weapons.

"What is an alchemist?" he asked,
finally.

"It's a man who understands nature and
the world. If he wanted to, he could
destroy this camp just with the force of
the wind."

The men laughed. They were used to
the ravages of war, and knew that the
wind could not deliver them a fatal
blow. Yet each felt his heart beat a bit
faster. They were men of the desert,
and they were fearful of sorcerers.

"I want to see him do it," said the chief.

"He needs three days," answered the
alchemist. "He is going to transform

himself into the wind, just to
demonstrate his powers. If he can't do
so, we humbly offer you our lives, for
the honor of your tribe."

"You can't offer me something that is
already mine," the chief said,
arrogantly. But he granted the travelers
three days.

The boy was shaking with fear, but the
alchemist helped him out of the tent.

"Don't let them see that you're afraid,"
the alchemist said. "They are brave
men, and they despise cowards."

But the boy couldn't even speak. He
was able to do so only after they had

walked through the center of the camp.
There was no need to imprison them:
the Arabs simply confiscated their
horses. So, once again, the world had
demonstrated its many languages: the
desert only moments ago had been
endless and free, and now it was an
impenetrable wall.

"You gave them everything I had!" the
boy said. "Everything I've saved in my
entire life!"

"Well, what good would it be to you if
you had t6 die?" the alchemist
answered. "Your money saved us for
three days. It's not often that money
saves a person's life."

But the boy was too frightened to listen
to words of wisdom. He had no idea
how he was going to transform himself
into the wind. He wasn't an alchemist!

The alchemist asked one of the soldiers
for some tea, and poured some on the
boy's wrists.

A wave of relief washed over him, and
the alchemist muttered some words
that the boy didn't understand.

"Don't give in to your fears," said the
alchemist, in a strangely gentle voice.
"If you do, you won't be able to talk to
your heart."

"But I have no idea how to turn myself

into the wind."

"If a person is living out his destiny, he
knows everything he needs to know.
There is only one thing that makes a
dream impossible to achieve: the fear
of failure."

"I'm not afraid of failing. It's just that I
don't know how to turn myself into the
wind."

"Well, you'll have to learn; your life
depends on it."

"But what if I can't?"

"Then you'll die in the midst of trying
to realize your destiny. That's a lot

better than dying like millions of other
people, who never even knew what
their destinies were.

"But don't worry," the alchemist
continued. "Usually the threat of death
makes people a lot more aware of their
lives."

*

The first day passed. There was a major
battle nearby, and a number of
wounded were brought back to the
camp. The dead soldiers were replaced
by others, and life went on.

Death doesn't change anything, the boy
thought.

"You could have died later on," a
soldier said to the body of one of his
companions. "You could have died
after peace had been declared. But, in
any case, you were going to die."

At the end of the day, the boy went
looking for the alchemist, who had
taken his falcon out into the desert.

"I still have no idea how to turn myself
into the wind," the boy repeated.

"Remember what I told you: the world
is only the visible aspect of God. And
that what alchemy does is to bring
spiritual perfection into contact with
the material plane."

"What are you doing?"

"Feeding my falcon."

"If I'm not able to turn myself into the
wind, we're going to die," the boy said.
"Why feed your falcon?"

"You're the one who may die," the
alchemist said. "I already know how to
turn myself into the wind."

*

On the second day, the boy climbed to
the top of a cliff near the camp. The
sentinels allowed him to go; they had
already heard about the sorcerer who
could turn himself into the wind, and

they didn't want to go near him. In any
case, the desert was impassable.

He spent the entire afternoon of the
second day looking out over the desert,
and listening to his heart. The boy
knew the desert sensed his fear. They
both spoke the same language.

*

On the third day, the chief met with his
officers. He called the alchemist to the
meeting and said, "Let's go see the boy
who turns himself into the wind."

"Let's," the alchemist answered.

The boy took them to the cliff where he

had been on the previous day. He told
them all to be seated.

"It's going to take a while," the boy
said.

"We're in no hurry," the chief
answered. "We are men of the desert."

The boy looked out at the horizon.
There were mountains in the distance.
And there were dunes, rocks, and plants
that insisted on living where survival
seemed impossible. There was the
desert that he had wandered for so
many months; despite all that time, he
knew only a small part of it. Within
that small part, he had found an
Englishman, caravans, tribal wars, and

an oasis with fifty thousand palm trees
and three hundred wells.

"What do you want here today?" the
desert asked him. "Didn't you spend
enough time looking at me yesterday?"

"Somewhere you are holding the
person I love," the boy said. "So, when
I look out over your sands, I am also
looking at her. I want to return to her,
and I need your help so that I can turn
myself into the wind."

"What is love?" the desert asked.

"Love is the falcon's flight over your
sands. Because for him, you are a green
field, from which he always returns

with game. He knows your rocks, your
dunes, and your mountains, and you are
generous to him."

"The falcon's beak carries bits of me,
myself," the desert said. "For years, I
care for his game, feeding it with the
little water that I have, and then I show
him where the game is.

And, one day, as I enjoy the fact that
his game thrives on my surface, the
falcon dives out of the sky, and takes
away what I've created."

"But that's why you created the game in
the first place," the boy answered. "To
nourish the falcon. And the falcon then
nourishes man. And, eventually, man

will nourish your sands, where the
game will once again flourish. That's
how the world goes."

"So is that what love is?"

"Yes, that's what love is. It's what
makes the game become the falcon, the
falcon become man, and man, in his
turn, the desert. It's what turns lead into
gold, and makes the gold return to the
earth."

"I don't understand what you're talking
about," the desert said.

"But you can at least understand that
somewhere in your sands there is a
woman waiting for me. And that's why

I have to turn myself into the wind."

The desert didn't answer him for a few
moments.

Then it told him, "I'll give you my
sands to help the wind to blow, but,
alone, I can't do anything. You have to
ask for help from the wind."

A breeze began to blow. The tribesmen
watched the boy from a distance,
talking among themselves in a
language that the boy couldn't
understand.

The alchemist smiled.

The wind approached the boy and

touched his face. It knew of the boy's
talk with the desert, because the winds
know everything. They blow across the
world without a birthplace, and with no
place to die.

"Help me," the boy said. "One day you
carried the voice of my loved one to
me."

"Who taught you to speak the language
of the desert and the wind?"

"My heart," the boy answered.

The wind has many names. In that part
of the world, it was called the sirocco,
because it brought moisture from the
oceans to the east. In the distant land

the boy came from, they called it the
levanter, because they believed that it
brought with it the sands of the desert,
and the screams of the Moorish wars.
Perhaps, in the places beyond the
pastures where his sheep lived, men
thought that the wind came from
Andalusia. But, actually, the wind
came from no place at all, nor did it go
to any place; that's why it was stronger
than the desert. Someone might one
day plant trees in the desert, and even
raise sheep there, but never would they
harness the wind.

"You can't be the wind," the wind said.
"We're two very different things."

"That's not true," the boy said. "I
learned the alchemist's secrets in my
travels. I have inside me the winds, the
deserts, the oceans, the stars, and
everything created in the universe. We
were all made by the same hand, and
we have the same soul. I want to be
like you, able to reach every corner of
the world, cross the seas, blow away
the sands that cover my treasure, and
carry the voice of the woman I love."

"I heard what you were talking about
the other day with the alchemist," the
wind said.

"He said that everything has its own
destiny. But people can't turn

themselves into the wind."

"Just teach me to be the wind for a few
moments," the boy said. "So you and I
can talk about the limitless
possibilities of people and the winds."

The wind's curiosity was aroused,
something that had never happened
before. It wanted to talk about those
things, but it didn't know how to turn a
man into the wind. And look how many
things the wind already knew how to
do! It created deserts, sank ships, felled
entire forests, and blew through cities
filled with music and strange noises. It
felt that it had no limits, yet here was a
boy saying that there were other things

the wind should be able to do.

"This is what we call love," the boy
said, seeing that the wind was close to
granting what he requested. "When you
are loved, you can do anything in
creation. When you are loved, there's
no need at all to understand what's
happening, because everything happens
within you, and even men can turn
themselves into the wind. As long as
the wind helps, of course."

The wind was a proud being, and it was
becoming irritated with what the boy
was saying.

It commenced to blow harder, raising
the desert sands. But finally it had to